William “Bill” Kling, a longtime and tireless activist on behalf of veterans causes and the Democratic Party, died Monday. He was 84.

“South Florida lost a hero today with the passing of Bill Kling,” U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston said in a statement. “This is certainly a tough loss for all of us in South Florida.”

Mr. Kling, a native New Yorker, served in the Navy during World War II, said his son, Steven Kling, and his friend Jack Shifrel, who knew Kling for 35 years and was at the hospital when he died at Broward Health North.

After moving to Broward, Mr. Kling was the owner of a television sales and service store, Perfect Television, on Broward Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. He also worked for two decades as a process server for the Broward Sheriff’s Office, Shifrel said.

He was best known for his community activism, especially involving veterans issues. For 27 years, Mr. Kling was the head of the Broward County Veterans Council, which is the umbrella organization for all the veterans groups in the county. He also was a leader of the Jewish War Veterans.

Mr. Kling was such a passionate advocate for veterans causes – and worked so hard on behalf of the veterans outpatient clinic on Commercial Boulevard in Sunrise that there’s a plaque inside clinic’s lobby that pays tribute to him. Wasserman Schultz, who said she’s known Mr. Kling for two decades, credited him with “bringing” the VA clinic to Sunrise and a veterans nursing home to Pembroke Pines.

He was also the president of the Plantation Democratic Club for more than 20 years.

“Bill was not only a great Democratic activist, but a fighter for everything veteran. Broward County is a much poorer place because of his passing,” said Mitch Ceasar, chairman of the Broward Democratic Party. “He could be a fierce partisan for Democrats, but his greatest love was fighting for veterans.”

Mr. Kling was so involved in veterans and political activities that he’ll be impossible to replace, Shifrel said. “We’re going to have to find three people to take his place.”

Rona Kling said her father in law was the kind of person who would do anything for others. “He always put himself out for other people,” she said. “You give him a phone call and he’d run and do it. He would stop doing whatever he was doing to help people.”

A resident of Plantation, he died of complications following major surgery, Shifrel said.
He is survived by a daughter, Marsha Mittentag, of Westchester County, New York, and a son, Steven Kling, of Wayne, N.J., and six grandchildren and five great grandchildren.

His wife, Sylvia, died 12 years ago, Steven Kling said.

Services are at 1:45 p.m. Wednesday at Star of David Memorial Gardens Cemetery and Funeral Chapel, 7701 Bailey Rd., North Lauderdale.

Comments

Bill was the only politically connected person in Broward County that listened to me about not being paid money for college by VA. He advocated on my behalf to Congress which had little effect on the VA's decision but at least gave my cause another voice that was more respected than I. I have no choice but to attend the funeral in the hope that veterans are respected more in life than in death which has been hard to achieve since so many who make a career in the military have few opportunities outside of the military if they aren't severely injured or die before they come home. Fair winds and following seas shipmate!
CTR2 / LI2 USN 1983-92
BM2 USNR 1992-97

Bill was a good friend and a treasur of knowledge. He might have been 84 but he was still 25 inside. His street smarts and his smile along with his brillence will forever shine a light on everyone who came in contact with Bill.

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About the authors

Broward County is an unusually rich territory for political news. The Broward Politics blog is devoted to the politicians, the activists, the parties, the policies, the issues, the elections - in the county and its communities.

ANTHONY MAN is the Sun Sentinel’s political writer. Concentrating on local political people, parties and trends, he also covers state and national politics from a South Florida perspective. He's coordinating the Broward Politics blog with contributions from reporters throughout the county. Before moving to the Broward political beat, he covered politics and Palm Beach County government for the Sun-Sentinel, including touch-screen voting and the Supervisor of Elections Office. He's also covered municipal, county, state, and federal elections and made repeated reporting trips to Tallahassee for regular and special sessions of the Florida Legislature. He joined the Sun-Sentinel in 2002 after covering state and local politics in Illinois. Like so many others in South Florida, he's originally from a New York suburb (Rockland County).

BRITTANY WALLMAN covers Broward County and news. A 1991 University of Florida graduate, Wallman started her journalism career at the Fort Myers News Press. She and her husband Bob Norman have two young children -- Creed and Lily. Wallman was born in Iowa and spent half her childhood there, the remainder in Oklahoma. She has covered local government and elections her entire reporting career -- including covering the infamous 2000 recount here in the presidential election. (She has a Mason jar with a "hanging chad'' inside to prove it.)

LARRY BARSZEWSKI covers Fort Lauderdale and Wilton Manors. In the past, he has reported on Palm Beach County government and schools, aging and social issues, Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach and state legislative sessions. He wrote for the Denver Post, Bradenton Herald and Miami Herald before joining the Sun Sentinel in 1988. A Massachusetts native, he lives in Boca Raton with his wife, Maggie, and teenage daughters Jessica and Jackie.